Internship Program

Varen Technologies is proudly in our third year of our Summer Internship Program. This year we have five interns, all with very diverse backgrounds, who have joined us for an exciting and educational summer work experience. Get to know a little more about them below!

Caroline Orndorff

Caroline Orndorff is a rising junior at Olivet Nazarene University in Illinois where she is studying Electrical Engineering with a minor in Mathematics. She found the opportunity to intern at Varen online and applied because “this would be a very different experience than I was getting at school.” She enjoys rock climbing, baking, has two dogs, and lots of chickens.

“This internship gives me a lot of diversity as an Electrical Engineer. Since the field of hardware is declining and software is increasingly important, I will have a diverse set of skills that will make me more valuable upon graduation. Most internships want you to either be ready to go into the field at the starting date or will leave you doing only busywork. As a rising junior, I doubted I could get the first kind of experience since I had only been in college for two years and did not know full-stack web development. Varen not only is giving us an opportunity to learn important development skills through projects for real clients – a good practice for the real world – but also managed to find a diverse team with very different specialties. Varen gave us the opportunity to not only learn from their engineers but also our peers.”

McKenna DeBandi

McKenna is a rising senior at Stevenson University in Baltimore, MD studying Digital Marketing. Her brother Ethan DeBandi is a developer at Varen and suggested that she apply for the internship with the company. During her time here she has learned to never be afraid to ask questions “and that having a “real” job isn’t as scary as I thought it would be.” McKenna really loves math and enjoys playing soccer and singing. She also has a love and passion for visual arts from painting to graphic design.

“I want to have a career as a UX (User Experience)/UI (User Interface) Developer, and I am doing a lot of that here. I am also learning a lot about the other components of web development that I had never had experience with, so I feel I am really broadening my marketability. It is a super friendly work environment and a great opportunity to step out of your comfort zone and learn a lot.”

John Shi

John is a rising junior at the University of Maryland College Park studying computer science. He found the opportunity to intern with us through Stack Overflow and was familiar with the technologies that Varen was looking for in our job advertisements. He’s learned a lot about CSS transitions, animations, and Git. John enjoys collecting fountain pens and playing around with new technologies.

“There is an eclectic selection of projects to choose from and there’s something for everyone in this program.”

Malachi White

Malachi is a rising junior at Butler University in Indiana studying Journalism and Vocal Performance with concentrations in Public Relations and Marketing. He was offered the opportunity to work with the Human Resources and Marketing departments at Varen as an intern. He has a passion for both opera singing and journalistic writing and hopes to one day write or be a marketer for a major publication.

“I am very grateful to Varen for giving me the opportunity to exercise my skills in an industry and environment that I’m not very used to. Having this opportunity expands my horizons so that I can now market myself as someone who can represent and write for any given environment after college. I am treated like a professional, and not like a stereotypical intern which has made the experience very beneficial. My lack of knowledge in coding and information technology has improved after working with the other interns to reach common goals on behalf of Varen. So I would encourage anyone who thinks they have a skill than contribute to the growth of a company, specifically, to apply for the internship in the future.”

Kayla Marquez

Kayla Marquez is a rising senior at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania studying Business Management. This is Kayla’s second year interning at Varen. She found out about the opportunity to intern at Varen from a neighbor and jumped at the opportunity to work as a Project Manager for a team. She has a learned an array of things during her time with the company including contracts, computer languages and software, and agile sprint reviews.

“Varen allowing me to function as a Project Manager with real world projects and allowing me to manage a team of developers has helped me greatly. I have went to meetings to gather requirements and then had a meeting with the developers on how we are going to implement what the client wants. One piece of advice that I would give college students looking for an internship is that when you do get an internship you will learn a lot and to be open and ready to learn anything and everything you can.”